Facebook and related apps slowly coming back online after lengthy outage

After going offline for several hours on Monday, Facebook and several of its social media platforms have begun to slowly come back online.

Facebook, Facebook Messenger and Instagram have all  mostly resumed functioning. WhatsApp appears to still be offline for some users as of 7 p.m. ET.

About six hours after its products went down, Facebook tweeted, “To the huge community of people and businesses around the world who depend on us: we’re sorry. We’ve been working hard to restore access to our apps and services and are happy to report they are coming back online now. Thank you for bearing with us.”

To the huge community of people and businesses around the world who depend on us: we’re sorry. We’ve been working hard to restore access to our apps and services and are happy to report they are coming back online now. Thank you for bearing with us.

— Facebook (@Facebook) October 4, 2021

“Facebook services coming back online now – may take some time to get to 100%. To every small and large business, family, and individual who depends on us, I’m sorry,” tweeted Facebook’s Chief Technology Officer Mike Schroepfer. Earlier in the day, Schroepfer had attributed the outage to “networking issues.”

Facebook services coming back online now – may take some time to get to 100%. To every small and large business, family, and individual who depends on us, I’m sorry.

— Mike Schroepfer (@schrep) October 4, 2021

A Facebook spokesperson confirmed to The New York Times that its products were slowly coming back online, but said it would take some time for them to stabilize. As the Times reported, the outage not only affected Facebook product users, but also its employees.

Facebook workers were reportedly unable to use email, internal communication tools or conduct business.

Facebook has yet to disclose the cause of the outage.

Reports of outages for Facebook products peaked around noon, with the message that Facebook “can’t be reached”  showing up when users attempted to go to the company’s eponymous flagship site. Instagram users got a “5xx Server Error” message when they attempted to use the photo-sharing app.

The mass outage of the massive social media platforms appeared to affect those outside of Facebook’s sphere as Twitter acknowledged some users were experiencing issues due to “more people than usual using Twitter.”

“Sometimes more people than usual use Twitter. We prepare for these moments, but today things didn’t go exactly as planned. Some of you may have had an issue seeing replies and DMs as a result. This has been fixed. Sorry about that!” the company said.

Sometimes more people than usual use Twitter. We prepare for these moments, but today things didn’t go exactly as planned. Some of you may have had an issue seeing replies and DMs as a result. This has been fixed. Sorry about that!

— Twitter Support (@TwitterSupport) October 4, 2021

Despite this assurance, #TwitterDown was, ironically, already trending on Twitter by Monday evening.

The Hill has reached out to Facebook for an update on its operations.